


March

by therosystarling



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Comfort, Fluff, Grief, M/M, Sad, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 23:19:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13623594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therosystarling/pseuds/therosystarling
Summary: How do you do it? How do you ever get over it?





	March

Stan didn't know how long he had been standing on the cliff edge by the quarry. The sun was still in the sky, but noticeably lower, so he figured it had been at least for two hours or so by now. The cold March wind had frozen his cheeks to a bright angry red, his fingertips still numb despite being jammed into his suit pockets. The pockets were just as itchy on the inside as the whole suit was. It was stiff. Rough. Small. Suffocating. 

_Unnatural._

The dismal gray sky made the water below him look like concrete, the only indication it was even a liquid were the slow, steady waves rippling on the surface. He had been fixated on it. Searching it for an answer. He asked it what to do and where to go, and he was getting nothing. He was about to ask it again for the hundredth time, demand an answer, force an answer, when the sickening thought of diving in washed over him. To just...jump in. Walk off the cliff edge. Join the waves.

It frighteningly seemed too easy of an answer. It didn't sound like a good one, but given the events of the last couple of days, it seemed like maybe the only one. The blank, pale look on his mother's face. Her swollen, glassy eyes, her hair barely brushed, her wracking sobs through the day and night. The cries and shouts of his aunts and uncles and cousins. The hundreds and hundreds of well wishes and apologies and sympathy hugs from friends and strangers alike. The Rabbi's son, now fatherless. A heart attack at forty-six, just three years younger than when his own father died, and three years older than when his grandfather died. Not once could Stan remember his father ever complaining of chest pain. Not once could Stan remember his father even having heartburn. His father clocked out at ten-oh-three p.m. Tuesday night squeezing a ridiculous amount of grapefruits into the juice pitcher for breakfast in the morning. Some healthy living.

He felt now his ghost was haunting him. Following him like a shadow, looming over him wherever he went. His presence hung in the air like cigarette smoke, judging every comment he made, watched every action he did, mimicked every step he took. And now his voice seemed as clear as day in his ears, calling for him. Jump and come with him. He still couldn't read the torah like a good Rabbi's son. He'd never take over the Synagogue like his mother wanted. His heart was a ticking time bomb anyway, so why even bother with continuing on, knowing he was going to disappoint everyone in his life and end up checking out at forty having accomplished nothing? Take a step, Stan. Come on in. _The water's fine._

And when he heard footsteps behind him, Stan honestly thought that this was it. His father had come and risen from his resting place to do the job himself and push him in, to grab him and cling to him like a vise, and chuck the both of them over the cliff into the frigid water. And Stan's father would be the anchor to keep him from changing his mind, and there they would lie, at the bottom of the quarry, intertwined for eternity. His final punishment to be held down by a man he'd never be equal to while his body rotted away, eaten by fish and turtles. 

But of course, it wasn't his father, pale and moaning and in chains like _The Ghost of Jewish Guilt_ past, but Bill. Bill in his funeral suit, a _new_ funeral suit, since he had long outgrown the one he wore for Georgie's three years ago. Bill with worry and understanding in his eyes, Bill with sorrow and love for him etched on his face. 

"Don't say it. Don't say you're sorry, Bill. If I hear one more person say they're sorry, I'll lose my goddamn mind."

But Bill didn't, Bill didn't say anything. He took a place next to Stan and wrapped an arm around his shoulder. And when Stan's sniffles turned into sobs, and the sobs became choking cries, Bill held him a little tighter and offered his shoulder for Stan to bury his face into. When the cries died down and his throat felt like fire and his eyes became dry as sand, he hoarsely whispered to Bill how he did it. How did he get through this with Georgie? How do you ever get over _this_?

"You don't. I w-w-wish you could. B-b-ut it stays w-w-w-ith you." And when he wiped Stan's face clean of tears, he softly added, "F-friends help, though." Stan, exhausted, nodded. Bill suggested going home, his mother must be worried sick, and the terrible thought Stan had just minutes before lifted. Bill was right, he had to get back. He couldn't hide out here all night. He was half dragged to old Silver and wrapped his arms around Bill's waist. 

"Y-y-our mom asked if I w-w-w-anted me to stay to-to-tonight. Do you w-ant me t-t-to?"

He never wanted anything more in his life. Yes. Yes, please. 

With that, they rode off, leaving the quarry behind them. Stan's murky, cold deep grave sealed off behind them, for now. For the time being.

He never did shake the feeling he belonged to the water, though.


End file.
